Spaceport America

Artist's concept of the main terminal
building at Spaceport America.
Credit: Spaceport America

A major new spacecraft launch facility under construction near Upham, New
Mexico (about 35 miles south of Roswell and 45 miles north of Las Cruces)
in order to support the commercialization of space. It also lies near to
the White Sands Missile Range. Previously
known as the Southwest Regional Spaceport, Spaceport America was officially
named by New Mexico's Economic Development Cabinet Secretary Rick Homans
at the Farnborough International Airshow in Farnborough, England, on July
17, 2006.

The spaceport will cover some 70 square
kilometers (27 square miles) and serve as the departure point for flights
by Virgin Galactic, run by billionaire
adventurer and business magnate Richard Branson, who has signed a 20-year
lease to use the facility. Branson's plans ultimately call for launching
as many as three flights a day for two-hour rides.

Spaceport America will also be the venue for the annual X Prize Cup in which
rocketeers will compete in a 21st century version of the great aviation
races of old. The 1,433-meter (4,700-ft) elevation of the site will save
on the amount of jet fuel it takes to get the spacecraft to the proper altitude
for launch from their mothercraft. The first X Prize Cup was held in 2005
and attracted as many as 20,000 visitors.

Plans call eventually for a full launch complex, a 3,600-meter runway and
aviation facility, a payload assembly complex, futuristic terminal (see
below), and other site infrastructure, construction of which is scheduled
to begin in 2008.

According to a study released in December 2005 by aerospace industry consultant
Futron Corporation, the Spaceport America could generate as much as $750m
per year by 2020.

New Mexico is not the only state working on a spaceport. Texas, California,
Florida and Virginia also have projects, mostly on military bases. In the
United States, only Spaceport America is being designed from the ground
up for commercial space ventures. However, similar facilities are being
planned in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

First
flights from Spaceport America

The inaugural launch from the new spaceport took place on September 25,
2006. It involved a SpaceLoft XL carrying over 50 experiments and payloads
from the private and educational sectors, worldwide. The 20-foot-tall, single-stage,
800-pound SpaceLoft XL solid-fuel rocket is designed to accelerate to five
times the speed of sound, or nearly 3,400 mph, in 13.5 seconds. This maiden
launch ended in failure when the rocket veered off course after reaching
only 40,000 ft (12 miles). However, a second SpaceLoft XL launch (SL-2),
on April 28, 2007, was successful. Aboard the rocket were a range of educational
experiments and commercial payloads.

Design for the spaceport
terminal

In September 2007, plans for Spaceport America's terminal building and environs
were made public. The terminal will be a "green" building with, according
to the designers a "low-lying, organic shape" (see artist's concept above).
It will be flanked by berms of earth rising out of the desert. Visitors
will enter the 9,300-square-metre, $31 million facility through a channel
cut in the landscape, walking between retaining walls covered with exhibits
on the history of the area and of space exploration. They will be able to
look down on spacecraft parked in the hangar and watch them rolling down
the runway through the terminal's panoramic windows.

The terminal building will be partly underground so that it is protected
from the extremes of the desert climate, and will be fitted with solar panels,
a water recycling system and a passive heating and cooling setup.

Roswell connection

The parched desert environs of Spaceport America are also home to Roswell,
where UFO buffs maintain that an alien spacecraft crashed in 1947 and its
inhabitants taken into government custody.

Artist's impression of the X Prize
Cup to be held at Spaceport America.
Credit: X Prize Foundation